Ray Simone, my good friend and longtime business partner, died Nov. 29. He was 63 years old. Ray was one of the most creative people I have ever known.

Though we originally shared the Creative Director title at our agency, Hodskins Simone & Searls, Ray was the Main Man. While I was a good copywriter, Ray could do it all: come up with killer campaigns, clever headlines, great design and art, tight scripts, whatever. His knowledge of art, of typography, of technologies and sciences — actually, pretty much everything — was encyclopedic. He worked hard and he was great to work with as well. We met in the mid-’70s in Durham, North Carolina, when I was still “Doctor Dave,” an occasional comic radio character for WDBS and columnist for the station’s magazine, and Ray was an artist whose equally comic work appeared in the same publication. We both circulated in the same low-rent hippie creative-art-music-dance-weekend-party crowd surrounding Duke University. Ray was working with David Hodskins and some other folks at small “multiple media” shop (decades ahead of its time) that had somehow spun out of the Duke Media Center.

One day, when I called up Ray to talk about collaborating on an ad for an audio shop I was working for part-time, Ray put me on hold and told David that Doctor Dave was on the line. David told Ray to arrange a lunch. A team was born over that lunch, and in 1978 it became an advertising agency: Hodskins Simone & Searls. By 1980 we were specializing in high tech clients up and down the East Coast and after several years decided to open a satellite office in Silicon Valley. After winning some major West Coast accounts we moved the whole agency to Palo Alto, and by the early ’90s HS&S was one of the top shops there. (Huge props to David Hodskins for his leadership through all that. David was the agency president and another truly brilliant dude.) Twenty years after its founding, HS&S was acquired.

By then I had moved on to other work, and after awhile so had David and Ray. While I went back to journalism, Ray went back to art, teaching at Ocean Shore School in Pacifica, as well as at Brighton Preschool, which he and Gillian, his wife and soulmate, ran in the same town. He was Sting Ray to the kids there. Says Gillian: “He made story time come alive.” He also went back to painting. But his full portfolio of accomplishments includes much, much more. For example, Ray designed covers for dozens of major country and bluegrass albums, mostly for Sugar Hill Records. Ray was himself a musician.

When he was a student at what is now Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, he played keyboards in a band that traveled to gigs in a used hearse. Some of the stories he told about those days were beyond wild and very funny. Ray was a born athlete, though he never exploited his talents beyond casually (but never maliciously) humiliating anybody who took him on at ping-pong, darts, softball or whatever. I remember one softball game where he grabbed a hard grounder bare-handed at third base, and — while falling down — threw out the runner at first base. All in one move. Like it was no big deal. It was awesome. He took up fencing when we were still in North Carolina, and quickly won trophies. A student of fun history, he was active for years in the Society for Creative Anachronism. In that capacity he once served “stargazy pie” at Monkeytop, the rambling Victorian urban commune where he, David Hodskins and many others lived at various times on Swift Street. (It’s now the restored E.K. Powe House.) When Ray and Gillian (also an artist) were married at a California ranch in 1991, everybody was costumed as cowboys and cowgirls. A devoted reader of science fiction and watcher of movies, Ray could expound with insight and authority on either subject, plus too many others to list. Yet what matters most is that Ray was a loving guy and a first-rate friend. Back at the turn of the ’90s, when I had sworn off dating after a series of failed relationships, Ray pulled me out of my shell. As a direct result I’ve now been happily married for more than 20 years, with a wonderful teenage son. I know Ray had similar influences on others as well. His full name: Raymond George Simone.

Most of his album credits are for Raymond Simone. Simone is pronounced with three syllables and a long e: Simon. That is, the correct Italian way. He was born in Potsdam, New York, and grew up in High Point, North Carolina. He had one brother, Jim, who died of throat cancer many years ago. Ray’s malady was lung cancer, no doubt an effect, as with Jim, of smoking. Ray quit many years ago, but it still caught up with him.

His mother, born and raised in Oklahoma, was part Cherokee. Both his parents passed in recent years. He sometimes called himself The Weasel (others shortened that to “The Weez”), and drew himself in cartoons as a weasel with a mustache. For most of the early years we worked together, Ray’s signature look was long hair and a mustache, sometimes waxed at the tips.

There will be a celebration of Ray Simone’s life Sunday, Jan. 15, at 1 p.m. at the Pedro Point Fire House, 1227 Danmann in Pacifica. All are invited. Please rsvp brightonp@mindspring.com so we know how many people might attend. Those who wish to say a few words about Ray are welcome. In lieu of flower, there will be a silent auction of all Rays drawing and paintings. Ray’s main wish in life was to sell his drawings.

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